A child abuser who groomed and sexually assaulted two children 25 years ago has been jailed for seven years.

Judge Robert Bartfield told Brian Lister, now 65, that he had "quenched his sexual thirst" on the girl and boy who were both around 13 when the abuse started in the 1970s.

Bradford Crown Court was told that Lister, of Farleton Drive, Fagley, Bradford, was a bus driver when he befriended the girl by offering her sweets and money.

Prosecutor Giles Bridge said that the pair developed a relationship and when she was 11 she would make a point of riding on Lister's buses. But the court was told that Lister went on to abuse the girl. Mr Bridge said that by the time the girl was 15 they had consensual sex, but that Lister then raped her when she told him to stop.

The court heard after that the pair continued to have sex and were still having a relationship into the 1980s and have a child together. In a victim impact statement the complainant described how she had suffered mental health problems as a result of the abuse and said that she now had a distrust of men.

Mr Bridge said that at the same time Lister started abusing the girl he also molested a boy. In his statement he said that he had been upset and distressed for a long time about what had happened. Neither of the complainants can be identified for legal reasons.

At an earlier hearing Lister pleaded guilty to one count of rape, three indecent assaults on a female, one indecent assault on a male and two counts of indecency with a child. Mr Bridge told the court that when the offences came to light in April police searched Lister's house and found a number of videos depicting bestiality, and Lister pleaded guilty to a further six counts of possessing obscene material.

His barrister, Fiona Dix-Dyer, told the judge that her client and the girl had fallen in love.

But Miss Dix-Dyer added that Lister was sorry for what he had done and regretted his actions and stated that his wife of 35 years is still standing by him. Passing sentence Judge Robert Bartfield told Lister: "Whether she loved you or was attracted to you or not makes no difference - you were the adult she was the child."

Lister will have to sign on the sex offenders' register and was banned from contacting the complainants, and from ever working or having unsupervised contact with children.